1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in particular to merchandise packaging systems and more particularly to a system for packaging individual items, such as groceries, in a handle-bearing plastic bag.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A traditional and long-accepted method for packaging merchandise, such as groceries at the check-out counters of grocery stores, has involved the loading of individual paper bags, a process which is oftentimes inefficient, time-consuming, and expensive. The person doing the bagging retrieves a bag from a stack, often under a counter, normally opens it by a quick motion of the arm causing air to catch in the bag and distend it, and then sets the bag upright on the counter. In the case of double bagging operations, a second bag must be opened in the same manner and then inserted inside the first bag to provide extra strength. The merchandise, e.g. groceries, is then placed into the open bag and the filled bags are slid across the counter so that the customers can put their arms around the middle of the bags and carry them out. Often, moisture absorption from the products contained within the heavily ladened bags will weaken the bottoms thereof, tending to cause them to separate or tear.
Although the general concept of packaging items in plastic bags is well known, prior art attempts to use such a concept to package merchandise in an environment such as, for example, that encountered at a modern grocery store check-out counter have, for the most part, met with little success. Thin plastic bags are very limp in nature and this characteristic not only adversely effects the loading operation, but any attempt to carry such a bag, loaded with groceries, at the mid-portion thereof proves to be very awkward because of the limp film's tendency to allow the upper portion of the bag to fold over, usually with disastrous consequences.
Recent attempts to remedy these deficiencies of plastic bags have included the provision on the bag of handles adjacent to the mouth of the bag. This has helped to alleviate the carrying problem, but the loading operation has remained a problem because of the difficulties attendant in loading a limp plastic bag which is not self-supporting. Elaborate devices have been used to open and support the empty bags, such as blowers which fill the bag with air and vacuum systems which hold the walls of the bag apart and upright, but these can be expensive, require substantial redesign and modification of check-out counters and are subject to mechanical break-down in heavy use. Although semi-rigid plastic films, such as vinyl, high density polyethylene and high modulus laminar structures formed therefrom, are available and could be used to construct bags which are self-supporting, the cost of such material is far beyond the relative costs of paper packaging materials and therefore, although a potential solution, it is one which is economically unattractive.